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Place dossier plate
SheetKY-MOUNT-STERLING-KY · Mount Sterling, KY 7,549 pop · income 21st pct · 7 tracts
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Mount Sterling
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Mount Sterling on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Pikeville · lowest
39,216
Pikeville · lowest
39,216 median HH income
28.1% of the leader · rank #1
Parsons · near
50,838
Parsons · near
50,838 median HH income
36.4% of the leader · rank #2
Mount Sterling · this city
50,843
Mount Sterling · this city
50,843 median HH income
36.4% of the leader · rank #3
Lee Acres · near
50,846
Lee Acres · near
50,846 median HH income
36.4% of the leader · rank #4
Carthage · near
50,849
Carthage · near
50,849 median HH income
36.4% of the leader · rank #5
Clinton · near
50,852
Clinton · near
50,852 median HH income
36.4% of the leader · rank #6
Laurel Hill · highest
139,803
Laurel Hill · highest
139,803 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Mount Sterling on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 7,549.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Mount Sterling - the verdict
Nationally, Mount Sterling sits in the 21st percentile for household income and the 49th percentile for safety among US cities with a population of 1,000 or more. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
21st
percentile, household income
36th
percentile, home value
10th
percentile, median rent
49th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Mount Sterling, KY
Census ACS 2023 estimates count 7,549 residents in Mount Sterling, a small town within Kentucky. Mount Sterling households earn a median of $50,843 annually, in the lower quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 15.4%. Home values in Mount Sterling run a median of $178,200, and the median resident age is 39.1 years. About 22.7% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 55.8% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 16 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 59% from five years earlier. Mount Sterling reports a comparatively low crime rate: the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program logs 1412.5 total incidents per 100,000 residents here, below the national average (agency reporting is voluntary, so this measures reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Kentucky run below the national norm: on BEA's 100-equals-national-average cost index, Kentucky scores 90.2 (Well Below Average), per the 2024 Regional Price Parities release. Statewide, HUD pegs Fair Market Rent for a two-bedroom unit at $984 monthly. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Kentucky run around $225, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 44.2 out of 100 (Low).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Mount Sterling's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from comparison shortlist to schools and households to within-city variation to work and mobility to housing and income to population change to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Mount Sterling, city-specific coverage includes within-city Census tract profiles, annual population history, matched public-school count, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Comparison shortlist
Which cities make useful reference points for Mount Sterling?
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
Within Kentucky, the closest population matches are Pikeville (7,560 residents, $39,216 income); London (7,576 residents, $45,850 income); Union (7,494 residents, $139,013 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Fort Scott, KS (7,551 residents); Laurel Hill, VA (7,551 residents); Northridge, OH (7,546 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
What does the education layer cover for Mount Sterling?
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
The NCES join finds 8 public schools within the city match. 22.7% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
What can 7 Census tracts reveal inside Mount Sterling?
PlainCities matches 7 Census tracts to this city.
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
What does the journey to work look like in Mount Sterling?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 84.9%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Housing and income
How far does income reach against housing in Mount Sterling?
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Income and home value move within the same broad scale here. The useful next check is not a generic affordability label, but whether similar-size cities offer a materially different income, housing, or commute trade-off.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.5 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 15.4%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Value / income
3.5×
Home value
$178,200
Household income
$50,843
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Mount Sterling growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +44 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +0.6% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 16 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
The recent population line is broadly flat. That makes the composition of change more important than the headline count: housing turnover, household size, and age structure can shift even when the total barely moves.
2020 estimate
7,542
2025 estimate
7,586
Period change
+0.6%
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Mount Sterling?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1412.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 38% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
Total reported rate
1412.5
Violent rate
211.2
Property rate
1201.3
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Cost of living A
90.2 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Violent crime D
211 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Bachelor's+ share D
22.7%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Poverty rate F
15.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income F
$50,843
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Mount Sterling profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 85/100 (A) · 90.2 index
Violent crime: 46/100 (D) · 211 /100k
Bachelor's+ share: 42/100 (D) · 22.7%
Poverty rate: 22/100 (F) · 15.4%
Household income: 21/100 (F) · $50,843
Where Mount Sterling sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Mount Sterling's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Mount Sterling highlighted among 8 peers.Read the chart values
Mount Sterling, KY (this city): home $178,200, crime 1,413/100k
Fort Scott, KS : home $89,400, crime 1,981/100k
Independence, OH : home $305,500, crime 1,358/100k
Pikeville, KY : home $301,300, crime 1,634/100k
London, KY : home $155,500, crime 2,749/100k
Villa Hills, KY : home $339,800, crime 893/100k
Flatwoods, KY : home $112,200, crime 264/100k
Russellville, KY : home $156,000, crime 1,218/100k
How does Mount Sterling compare to other US cities?
Where Mount Sterling sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income21% higher than other cities
Home value36% pricier than other cities
Median rent10% pricier than other cities
Safety49% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Kentucky alone, Mount Sterling ranks #136 of 181 Kentucky cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Mount Sterling against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Kentucky only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Kentucky-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Mount Sterling near the bottom of Kentucky's cities
Among the 520 Kentucky cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Mount Sterling ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Mount Sterling only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#282 of 485
42nd percentile in Kentucky
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 520
0th percentile in Kentucky
Median Home Value
#178 of 484
63rd percentile in Kentucky
Poverty Rate
#206 of 519
60th percentile in Kentucky
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#204 of 520
61st percentile in Kentucky
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Kentucky only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
21st percentile nationally for median household income · 49th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Mount Sterling's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Mount Sterling's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Mount Sterling's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$178,200Among the most affordablemore affordable than 64% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Mount Sterling's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.5×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#8,979 of 15,516
More affordable than 42% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#7,248 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.5×, Mount Sterling sits in the moderate band:
national rank #8,979 of 15,516 and #7,248 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
Income and home value move in the same broad scale; check same-state peers before treating the multiple as an advantage or a warning.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$50,843Mount Sterling, KY median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Mount Sterling, KY median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Mount Sterling, KY.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)22.7%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)15.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)55.8%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
7,549
Median Income
$50,843
Median Home Value
$178,200
Median Age
39.1
Poverty Rate
15.4%
Labor force participation
55.8%
Bachelor's Degree+
22.7%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1412.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
211.2
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1201.3
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Schools
Total Schools
8
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Mount Sterling's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
7,542 residents
2021
7,549 residents
2022
7,547 residents
2023
7,569 residents
2024
7,604 residents
2025
7,586 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
16
housing units authorized
Single-Family
16
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
2.1
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
39
22
17
$4.6M
2020
8
4
4
$1.3M
2021
7
5
2
$1.4M
2022
11
11
0
$3.3M
2023
6
4
2
$2.5M
2024
16
16
0
$4.6M
Permit volume decreased 59% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
84.9%
Carpool
6.7%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
1.2%
Work from Home
6.7%
Based on 3,373 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Kentucky statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $225
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Kentucky at $225 (electricity about $115 , water and sewer about $40 ).
These are Kentucky statewide averages, not a meter reading for Mount Sterling. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Kentucky's BEA cost-of-living index is 90.2 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Mount Sterling is $984/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Kentucky statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 44.2 / 100 (Low).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Kentucky statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Mount Sterling sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Mount Sterling compares to similar-size Kentucky cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.